A reality facing many pop stars in older age brackets is that major labels no longer want to front them the cash to record albums of original material. Hence the steady stream of Christmas carols, American standards and covers albums from the chart-toppers of yesteryear.
Keenly aware of this situation, bluesy-voiced British singer Alison Moyet opted to independently finance and produce her eighth solo album, The Minutes (Metropolis/Cooking Vinyl), and then figure out how to release it later. The album, which was co-produced with Guy Sigsworth, marks the former Yaz front woman’s return to electronic music and is full of world-weary and sometimes cutting reflections on love, time and aging.

We were fortunate to land an interview with the influential star to chat about the record ahead of her fall tour, which will include three concerts in the United States. Check out the Q&A and her upcoming tour dates after the jump.

Hard Ton is a larger-than-life disco duo made up of singer Max (above) and DJ Wawashi. Based in Italy, the pair will perform on Canadian soil for the first time this Saturday at legendary party Hotnuts (HI-NRG DOLLphins) where guests are guaranteed a “multisensorial” experience and will certainly hear the new plus-sized singles “Food of Love” and “Work Your Body” among others.

We’ve invited back our two drag muses and the proprietresses of Hotnuts Produzentin and Mary Messhausen (below) to conduct a quick Q&A with singer Max where they explore the aesthetic world of Hard Ton and pull out some tidbits of what we can expect this weekend.

After the jump, find the full Q&A plus Hard Ton’s most recent music videos and ticket information for this Saturday!

Cakes Da Killa describes himself as a “walking contradiction.” There’s a video online of his “hypothetical rap mother” Remy Ma spitting a 6 minute a cappella from a jail cell. She coughs out the term “nice nasty” (not to be confused with Michel’le’s RnB groove “Nicety“) which pretty much encapsulates what Cakes is all about: He’s a RAP PIÑATA who busts open on stage to reveal a torrent of bitchy verbal arrangements concerning your boyfriend, those that need pay to be gay, and them homophobic hypocrites.

In advance of his Toronto Pride performance this Friday at Fit Primpin at the Great Hall we interrupted Cakes’s busy baking schedule to chatter about poonany power, spirit animals and his favorite bad boy Draco Malfoy.

British pop star Jessie Ware‘s debut album Devotion is getting a proper North American release this week, a mere eight months after it came out in the United Kingdom. Of course, once an album is released in North America the next stop en route to global pop superstardom is an interview with !! omg blog !!

A few weeks ago we reached Jessie via telephone in her Amsterdam hotel room to discuss her transitions from back-up singer to dance vocalist, from dance vocalist to solo recording artist, and from recording artist to live performer. Through it all, she has written several stellar pop songs, collaborated with rapper A$AP Rocky and come up with a signature dance routine (that may or may not have a name) while never losing sight of her Jewish Princess-ness. Read the full Q&A with Jessie Ware after the jump!

Singer, DJ, and expert twirler Shaun J. Wright sat down with special !! omg blog !! correspondents Produzentin and Mary Messhausen for an exclusive interview leading up to his Toronto show this weekend.

Shaun will be performing a special set this Saturday April 6 at the legendary dress-up-and-dance party Hotnuts at the Garrison in Toronto. Buy your $10 limited presale tickets at Rotate This (801 Queen St W.) or Soundscapes (572 College St.) or pay $13 at the door.

And now, onto the Q&A.

Mary Messhausen: Your first band experience was with Hercules & Love Affair. How was the first show? It must have been so exciting and overwhelming.
Shaun J. Wright: I just remember that I had to put everything together in terms of my look and I just wasn’t able to accomplish it myself. All my energy was going into that rather than the actual performance because I had been performing for years as a dancer – never a super big professional level – but I was not very nervous about performing in front of people.

But the outfits couldn’t come together and Shayne Oliver from Hood By Air who was designing our clothes brought everything together for us. A load fell off my shoulders.
At the first sound check, one of my best friends came by and he started crying because he had never seen me perform.

We had done a little one-off show in San Francisco before our actual first two shows in New York with the full band. In San Francisco that was my very first show with Andy [Butler], Mark [Pistel] and Kim Ann [Foxman]. But the third show was the actual most impressive one because Solange was right there in the audience. And that’s when I freaked out.

MM: It must be so exciting for you that you are in the process of starting your own solo shows.
Yes it is. I just came back from Australia and I got to perform with stereogamous a few times. I love those guys. We recorded new songs and I got to perform them.

I have been reluctant about doing my live performances because I always had this support system of Kim Ann Foxman on one side and Aérea Negrot on the other side, that kind of group energy. But now I did those few shows and I was like oh, this is nice too. You know what you’re made of. I mean it’s not a Britney production yet, but maybe one day.

Produzentin: So it feels good to be in the center now?
Yeah, all over, the front and the sides and take it back.